Chasing Suns
by violetmarbles
Summary: Cam's life was right on track, engaged to her high school sweetheart and running her family business, but everything changed once the days fell into eternal night. When a stranger from her past appears with the same sun-shaped mark as hers, she knows only trouble can come of it. And trouble is generous, in the world of ruin. Gladio soulmate AU
1. Prologue

"Shaping up to be another beautiful day, hun."

Cam smiled, her cheeks warm from the sunrise spilling onto the cityscape of Lestallum, flooding the structures and buildings in vivid hues of orange and pink. She breathed deep, eyes closed, drawing the energy of a new day in and letting it soak into her bones. As she did everyday her hand smoothed over the bend of her right hip, her own little ray of sunshine hidden beneath. Although city air wasn't as fresh as that from the Duscae countryside, it was good to get out into civilization once more. She exhaled, content. "Yeah, sure is."

Too bad they were getting shorter...

Behind her, Nolan set the last crate of peas on the supply wagon and locked up the truck, flipping his shaggy blond hair back and out of his eyes. "Alright," he hummed. "Good to go."

They carted the wagon up from the parkade and across the street, heading into the heart of the town with Cam's family produce in tow. Every weekend her and Nolan, her highschool sweetheart and as of three weeks ago her fiance, would make their way to Lestallum's market to sell the produce from the farm Cam grew up on. Half of the goods she'd dug up herself before sunset the night prior, fingernails still caked in dirt despite her attempts to scrape them clean before heading out.

It was good gil, as there was always the demand for produce; they typically sold out by noon each day, taking the rest of their time by chatting with the other provisioners and checking out their wares. They also purchased seedlings and bulbs for tubulars there. Cam's weekends played out this way even when she was a young girl, dotting along with her father before taking over for him when his back deteriorated.

Recently however, they were lucky to sell out by the time the sun went down. Shorter days meant less sunlight, and less sunlight made for lower quality harvests. Soon they wouldn't be able to afford the weekly trips into the city, perhaps turn to canning and preserves for year-long profits if even that.

Cam frowned. That quaint cottage on the water was still for sale, but her and Nolan barely had enough scrounged up for the down payment. She couldn't abandon the family farm; for one, her mother would smack her upside the head, tell her to 'keep to her roots.' Her father would of course, tell her to do whatever makes her happy, though she would see the pain in his eyes, the Reynold's family business closing down with her to blame. It was daunting, to say the least.

But for now she hid her internal squabbles as they set up shop, bright offerings of fresh beetroots, sweet peppers, Eos green peas and Lucian tomatoes the pick of the crop today, so fresh patches of dirt clung to their flesh. Nolan unfolded chairs for the two of them and they relaxed, watching the other vendors prepare their displays.

By mid morning they already turned a fair profit, just about half of their goods sold and the gas money for the trip in covered, so Cam was at least grateful for that. Nolan left to help with procuring the next seeds for sowing before the summer months came, so Cam was manning the booth by herself. She'd just finished helping one of her regulars with a rather large order when a tall, sharp-dressed young man approached.

She felt ought to greet him, but his focus seemed elsewhere as he squinted through his glasses, comparing the peas and peppers. Instead Cam decided to offer assistance. "May I help you with anything, sir?"

He looked up. Bright eyes, handsome, well groomed. A city slicker, perhaps. "No need, I'll take a bundle of beetroot, miss."

Remarkable accent on him. "Sure thing. Forty gil, please."

He flipped through his wallet, pulling the required funds as three others joined him, all dressed in black clothing that didn't seem to fit in with the vibrancy of Lestallum. One of them had a camera and decided it be an opportune time to take Cam's picture. She furrowed her brows, though smirked in jest as she counted change for the man. "Didn't even ask me to say 'cheese?' Some photographer you are."

"Oh man, you're right! How could I ever forget the basics?" His voice as bright as his blonde fringe. "Alright, look over here annnnnnd, 'cheese!'"

Cam tucked a lock of brown hair behind her ear as she gave a kind smile, plain, unexciting. Even still, he gave her a thumbs up before his bespectacled friend thanked her for the goods. "Might have a new recipe in mind with these. Enjoy your day, miss."

He turned to speak with a very tired looking young man, eyes puffy from either lack of sleep or too much of it. Cam pocketed the profits in her gil satchel, flipping through the bills before something blocked out the sun.

Or rather someone. A man, tall and equipped with enough muscle to flip a tank stood beside her booth, checking out the seller's wares next to hers. A cocoa mop of hair ruffled in the breeze and he exhaled, as if letting a great weight off his back. Then he stretched his arms over his head and Cam's heart skipped a beat.

On his hip, barely visible but definitely there, a small sun about the size of a golf ball discolored his skin, peeking out from the hem of his leather jacket. Any person catching a glimpse of it wouldn't have given it second thought but it had the full range of Cam's attention now, her stomach doing somersaults as her hand flew to her hip where underneath her clothes, she hid an identical sun of her own.

The mark of a soulmate. On a stranger, right in front of her.

What was she to do, tap him on the shoulder and hike up her shirt? Would he even know what it was? There was also the tiny detail that she was happily engaged to the love of her life.

Speak of the devil, he startled her as he sauntered back behind the booth. "Stock of wild onion bulbs is in," Nolan announced. "I got you a couple dozen, thought that would be good to start. The peppers have really overtaken most of the...Hey, Cam. You there?"

She snapped out of her thoughts, turning to give her fiance an overly exaggerated smile. "Yes! Sorry, was distracted…"

As Nolan continued speaking, she watched the stranger regroup with his three friends in black and they left the market. A pang of regret, despite the circumstances pained her insides. She supposed it didn't matter; not everyone ends up with their soulmates and she already found the only man she could see spending her life with. And so as her and Nolan sold their last bundles of produce, drove back to the Reynold family farm in time for chicken dinner and peach cobbler before reading themselves to sleep in eachother's arms, Cam decided life as she knew it was absolute perfection the way it was.

Though every now and then, try as she did to prevent it, her mind wandered back to that day with questions of what could have been. She thought of him and saw the sun, warm and intriguing as the new day washing over Lestallum.

She saw the sun, even when those days lasted mere hours. He kept entering her thoughts even at the most inopportune occurrences, especially when Nolan was around.

But more than ever, she saw the sun when darkness finally swallowed Eos whole.


	2. World of Ruin

Two years of darkness passed.

The final day with light lasted only an hour. Cam watched the sun disappear that day with Nolan by her side. He'd shrugged it off as something that would pass, something that wouldn't last more than a short while.

Sometimes she reminded him of his words, whether to jest with him or in pointless argument. But not long after the sun left they began to feel the effects of what some eccentrics on television coined, 'Starscourge.'

Weather was unpredictable, often dismal. Winds blew without a straight course and changed direction multiple times through the day. Sometimes the cold became uncomfortable, frost forming ruts in the driveway and forcing them to pull out their winter clothes on occasion. Rain was the worst. It came down in a black residue, staining the ground with a tar-like appearance.

Within the first few weeks, looters came. Fresh food was scarce and the farm was a target early on. When Nolan attempted to drive them away, one held a gun to his throat. After they'd cleaned them of the final root vegetables, they tried to grow more.

But without sunlight, the crops didn't last long. They sowed the seeds, checked each day for progress but they wouldn't even catch roots, their pods turning to rot. Not surprising, though Cam had high hopes. Said hopes only had shallow wells to draw from, and so it was the end of an era for her family name. At least her family couldn't reprimand her for it; after all, the dead didn't talk much.

Death was inevitable, everywhere in abundance and at any given moment. Daemons roamed the roads, fields, woods and highlands especially. They were intelligent, learning human habits and gathering at places they frequented, overwhelming unprepared locals and causing grief to hunters who underestimated the job.

Such was the employment Nolan took on when the daemons came. It was fast, reliable income, and there was always work to be done. Always hordes to slaughter. Always Injured people to rescue from underneath a bridge. Always small children clinging to his knee, begging for him to tell them where their mommy or daddy was, their remains a whitish-pink residue against the pavement and their clothing caught on a guardrail…

Their love strained, Cam trying to be the beacon of light they so desperately needed in this eleventh hour. They'd gone weeks without touching eachother, Nolan unable to sleep properly each night had resorted to balling up in the fetal position on the couch, repeating in his head how he wasn't ready for this, body racked with sobs until his head throbbed.

They were all each other had though, and so it was enough. It wasn't perfect, it wasn't the love they intended to share, but it was enough. And in this world of ruin, it was everything to them.

Cam sat across from Nolan at the dining room table, thumbing the rim of her coffee mug, the Ebony stale but better than nothing. She took a sip, peeking at her fiance over the cup wall. She couldn't recall when they last spoke, the only sound re-run newscasts on the TV set. She grasped for something, anything, to talk about. "Hm, so," she mustered, throat stuck together. "When are you heading out next?"

Nolan sighed, leaning back in his seat, eyes never leaving the broadcast. "Dunno, Greyson has to text me the details. Haven't heard from him in a few days, though." He stood, finally offering Cam an empty look. A man almost broken. Almost. "I'll give him a call soon. Going for a shower."

He left to go upstairs, the floorboards creaking with each step. Cam cradled her knees to her chest and let her attention be consumed by the year-old broadcast, bright ticker-tape along the bottom reading _'Lestallum Packed: Refugees Refused Admission.'_

She flicked through her phone, tapped on icons and closed random applications, something to keep her out of the dark recesses of her mind. She opened the gallery, scrolled to the bottom, and worked her way up to more recent pictures. Photos faded from bright color swatches and selfies and smiles and life, to dimly-lit offerings of daemon sightings and pictures of missing people with no identification. The depressing gradient tightened her chest. She pocketed her phone, resting her chin on her knees as she heard the water turn off in the bathroom above.

 _SLAM!_

Cam jolted off her chair as a thunderous crash came from outside, the ground jarring. She flew to the opposite wall of the kitchen and peered out the window, squinting her eyes to adjust to the darkness past the spotlights. When she could make out the source of the disturbance, her pulse doubled.

An iron giant, glowing red from within and yielding a sword the size of a freight truck was heading their way, the house in it's current path, eyes flared and a craving the taste of destruction. It swung its weapon sideways, cleaving into an old grain silo without restraint, the tower crashing into the earth with a shock wave.

Cam shrieked and called for Nolan, who bounded down the stairs in just a towel, chest still damp. "Hun, we gotta get outta here!" she cried, scrambling to throw her boots on over the cuffs of her jeans as Nolan sprinted upstairs to dress himself. The ground shook with greater tremors, the light outside growing dimmer and dimmer as the daemon knocked spotlights over like matchsticks, their bulbs popping on impact. Her mug of coffee jumped on the table and spilled everywhere. The TV screen shattered, smoking from the inside. The refrigerator door swung open.

"NOLAN!" Cam screamed, the iron giant outside so close she couldn't see the top of it's head anymore. A pause, the earth quaking had stopped. She could hear Nolan upstairs, his movements-

The roof split mere feet from her right and Cam launched forward, barely missing impalement from a supporting beam and sprinted for the front door. Before she reached it, the monster brought his blade down on the house again, splintering wood flying dangerously in all directions as countless items, trinkets, family treasures shattered in a second. The door frame took the brunt of the damage and it caved in completely.

They were trapped.

"NOLLLLANNN," Cam screamed, tears warping her vision as she searched for her fiance, dust and dirt fogging what remained of the kitchen. The only sound came from outside, the rumbling of the giant's battle roars popping her ears.

Nothing. But then, "Cam! Cam babe, are you okay?"

He was behind a wall, blocked in from the daemon's horrendously well-placed blows. Cam scouted an access point, but walls of wood and shingles and brick barred entry. "Nolan, I-I can't find a way in!"

She attempted with insufficient strength to lift a rafter off the rubble, her arms shaking from the strain, giving up with a furious exhale. "FUCK!" she cried, sobs wracking her chest and her vision going red.

The ground shook again and the giant stomped around to the other side of the house. Oh no. One more blow and she'd be crushed. They'd be crushed.

In her desperation to find something, anything…a window, broken from the impacts but open without interruption. The daemon was on the opposite side of the house, and she had a clear path to the truck. "I-I see a way out!" Cam yelled, thankful she'd forgotten to hang the keys on the hook earlier.

"Cam, go honey. Get out of here! Please!"

Her anguish at the decision before her was palpable. "I can't leave you, oh my god oh my god, Nolan-"

"GODDAMMIT, CAM!" Nolan bellowed from the blocked-off room beside her. "GO! Please get out of here! FOR ME! DO IT FOR ME, CAM, GO!"

She hyperventilated as the giant roared from outside, the sound of another grain silo being felled stinging her ears. Leaving him meant only one thing and they both knew it. "Camellia, _please._ Please go, please _live,_ " Nolan pleaded, his voice choking up.

Cam nearly buckled over from the weight of the decision on her shoulders. Though she'd rather await the eventual death that would come from the daemon outside, Nolan needed her to try. He needed her to live, for the both of them.

"Nolan…I l-love you so much…" her voice trembled, sniffling constantly to keep her airway free.

"I love you, Cam. Now go!"

His words sent adrenaline through her system and she whipped self-doubt to the wind as she leapt out the broken window, glass snagging against her sweater. She yanked it free in time, sprinting with long-since used muscles to make it before the daemon spotted her. She dare not look up, nor around her at the destruction of her family farm. All she let into her blurry field of vision was the door to the truck, the key in the ignition, then her foot to the floor. But as the tires skid in the mud and the vehicle launched forward, gaining better traction once she hit asphalt, Cam caught a glimpse of the ruins in her peripherals…right as the iron giant brought his sword down on the remnants of her house.

She fought the urge to vomit up her internal organs as she struggled to keep on the road, lit only by one working headlight. She drove to the only place she thought of despite knowing she wouldn't get in. The only place where long ago in a different life, she had shared better days with Nolan.

Lestallum.


	3. Reset

Luck was empathetic that evening.

Cam reached the blockade just outside of Lestallum, easing off the gas to brake for the approaching guard, a semi-automatic rifle cradled in his arms. She expected to be denied entry, that they were booked to capacity, but he asked her why she was here and it'd taken the last reserves of her composure to grit through clenched teeth that her fiance was just killed. That she had nowhere else to go. That she had no one else.

And so after several seconds of uncomfortable silence his shrewd eyes narrowed at her, a toothpick rolling between his teeth as he turned to another guard holding a checklist, made a quick scrawl and nodded for them to open the gate.

Cam parked the truck in the lot above the overlook, pressed her head to the steering wheel and broke into a million pieces. She cried harder than she had over the past couple of years, loud screams and sobs of anger and heartbreak clamping her ribcage against her lungs. Nolan was dead. She was homeless. Three hundred gil to her name crumpled up in her pocket, an old truck running on fumes, her cellphone and the clothes on her back.

She wept for an immeasurable amount of time, exhausting herself to the point her whimpers came out in cracks, her throat raw and sore. People outside had stared as they passed by, but fuck them. When the windows fogged, it was welcome seclusion.

At some point she fell asleep, leaning against the window and letting the tears flow freely against the glass as she drifted off. The nightmares showed no sympathy, barraging her mind with images of her family home buckling under the blow of the daemon's weapon, the lights going out one after the other, and Nolan, trapped behind the rubble…

A tapping on the glass pulled her from the torment. She'd slept all night, or at least a full night's sleep worth; it was hard to tell the days apart, for obvious reasons. Cam blinked and wiped the condensation from the window.

A familiar face peered in and she cranked the window down. "Greyson," she croaked, voice sandpaper against her throat. "What are you doing here?"

The husky man noticed her golden eyes were rimmed-red, puffy and raw. "Could ask you the same thing." Worry accented his words. "When did you get here? Where's Nolan?"

Nolan…The wounds barely clotted and hearing his name ripped them open again. Without hesitation Cam's eyes gathered tears. She couldn't speak, so she shook her head, the corners of her lips quivering.

"Cam, what…" But then realization, as his face softened. "No, no fucking way…"

Greyson paced away with his head down, pinching the bridge of his nose. He circled back to the driver's side window. "I'm so so sorry, Cam. When did-"

"Last night," She replied through her teeth, anything to keep from breaking down again. "House's gone. Iron giant."

"Goddammit." Greyson scratched his patchy beard and seemed to consider something. "What're you gonna do?"

Cam stared out the windshield. "Stay here, I guess. They always need people at the power plant-"

"Come with me to HQ," He suggested, cutting her off by accident. "We always need people, too."

"To replace the ones that were killed, sure."

Greyson seemed offended. "Not necessarily. We can use the help with vendors, or provisions or-"

"I'm staying here, Greyson." It was Cam's turn to cut him off. "I don't have any desire to become a hunter. I know what life comes with that…profession," she avoided Nolan's face in her thoughts, "and it's not for me. Thank you, but no."

"Alright, alright," He held his hands up, "whatever you say. Offer will stand should you take it. I just want to see you in good hands."

They chatted for a little while longer before Greyson took off, a haul of supplies in the back of his pickup.

Cam spent the rest of her gil on a hotel room at the Leville and acquired a job at the power plant without needing an interview, as they were so desperate for people. Two days into it however, and she literally couldn't take the heat. Even with the protective suits her skin boiled, the relief of a cold shower her reward at the end of the day. It paid by the day which was helpful, but it wouldn't be enough for her to find a place to stay, afford rations and pay her phone bill. She'd have to do with out the latter eventually; not like she had anyone to keep in touch with.

After two weeks Cam's income couldn't keep up with the cost of renting a hotel room. She sold the truck, the profit just enough for one more night's stay, and after an awkward conversation with a coworker she moved into their basement for the time being.

Jobs apart from the power plant were hard to come by, as any openings were filled the same day they were posted due to the massive population of the city. Crowds were not Cam's thing and they were everywhere; restaurants packed to capacity and people forced to sit on the curb and eat their meals, lines at shops going around the block and barely any personal space when walking to and from work. It was overwhelming. Unnerving.

 _Suffocating._

There was a darkness of her own akin to that which plagued the land, seeping into her mind and spreading to further reaches as the days, then weeks, passed by. Color drained from her world, faces became flesh blobs in her field of vision, monotone voices with a distant pan no matter their proximity. It was a struggle each evening to keep Nolan from her thoughts, or at least think of better memories with him other than his final moments.

Cam leaned against the wall of the shower as she'd done every night after work, letting the ice water drench her and extinguish the fire her skin had endured in the heat suit. She wanted more than anything to stroll through the market square hand in hand with him, his blonde shag whipping around his face in the breeze and the innocence of youth in his silver eyes. But they'd converted the space into makeshift housing to try and deal with the influx of refugees so that was out of the question.

For some reason she reminisced back to a particular day at market, where she'd met four young men dressed in black clothing, including the one with the sun on his hip. Cam didn't mention it to Nolan for obvious reasons; after all, how would one react to their significant other pointing out a stranger and announcing they were their soulmate?

That didn't prevent her from thinking about him, though. Despite the years passing, the features of his face kept in crisp detail and whenever she thought of him pins and needles flared from the marking on her hip. Nolan's face was already blurry…

No. It wasn't fair to his memory to be thinking about a stranger like this, soulmate or not. She had to focus on restarting her life, getting her shit together. And after deliberating back and forth with herself, she concluded Lestallum was not the place for her.

She had to do as Nolan did. She needed to make a difference, and poaching herself in a heat suit on the daily was not the way to do it.

After tying her chestnut locks in a damp ponytail, she opened the contact page of her phone and dialed the only listing. After two rings, Greyson picked up. "Hey Cam, how's Lestallum treating you?"

She sighed. "Not well. I was hoping that offer of yours was still on the table."

"You mean you want to come work at HQ?"

A pause as she mulled over her decision a final time. The hunter lifestyle went against her grain; it required strength, cunning, fast reflexes and physical fitness, all things she lacked in varying degrees. To train and groom herself into a hunter would require a level of dedication she'd only previously applied to the family business, but the drive was there. Hidden beneath layers of encroaching depression and dysphoria, but it was there.

"Uhh Cam, you there?"

Greyson's voice brought her back to the present. "Yeah," she replied, "yeah, I want to go to HQ. Could you um, come pick me up anytime soon? I sold the truck."

"Oh." Greyson coughed. "Actually I can pick you up tonight. Is seven thirty okay?"

"Sure, I'll pack my things." Said things consisted of only a few changes of clothes, wallet and toothbrush. She'd be done in seconds. "I'll meet you in the parkade."

"Sounds good, later."

As she ended the call, the sun marking on her hip tingled from beneath her skin, stronger than ever before.


End file.
